Because first impressions will always the most accurate description of someone.

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Doesn't matter if they are accurate, a first impression will dictate your actions and behavior towards someone.

C-A

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Just saying, I've never judged anyone solely based on my first impression of them ever since the nice kid I met in 3rd grade turned out to be a complete maniac.

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Also if there was nothing wrong with Ai in the beginning there wouldn't be much of a Social Link.

Also also, the cliché argument doesn't mean much since literally everything has been done at this point. The P4 team meant to have characters like Kanji and Naoto be tropebreakers but even their character types are becoming cliché. NOTHING is original anymore.

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What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

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I'm saying that it's pretty hard for someone to overturn my first impression of someone, generally cause I am right with said first impression. Giving me a piss poor excuse to somehow change someone's personality is a terrible way to do so. It's like suddenly, after hours of hating the villain, the hero learns ONE thing about them and immediately begins to pity the villain.

Franzise, I know everything's been done before and nothing is original anymore. I have that view myself. Though I will say, Kanji and Naoto were never trope breakers to begin with. They were not the first tough guy appearance with feminine hobbies, nor was Naoto's behaving like a boy to be accepted in something "only boys do" anything new. They were done before, generally better, too.

C-A

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Fixed

Edit: Double Fixed

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Seriously though, that was the most pretentiously condescending sentence you have wrote on this forum to date.

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Written.

C-A

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While I think first impressions are important, judging someone based on your first 30 seconds of interactions is foolish. Every person has depth. What if at your first meeting someone goes out of their way to impress? What if they're having an off day? To assess a person, it's going to take more than first impressions to fully know someone. Another thing too is people change. Someone may be mean, but don't put 'em down if they want to turn over a new leaf.

Cat, I could care less if you hate Ai, but putting your logic on why you hate her into your logic on how you treat people in real life is going to make you enemies.

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My post was meant to be more of a "Simpsons did it" comment than a jaded one, by the way.

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I didn't mean to imply your post was jaded, I just was posting that even back in biblical times, there was nothing original anymore. The best we writers can do is take something unoriginal and try to make it interesting. And I'm okay with that.

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Oh, yeah, I know, I meant that more for Cat.

This is what happens when I get lazy and don't use quote boxes.

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So? I was both bully and bully victim in my school classes, I was never popular and I am sure there were some that really hated me and I made enemies. But what's the point of it? I haven't seen any of my classmates in years. (Meaning: if I make enemies of people I won't see after a short stint, what does it matter?)

And my issue with Ai is she comes off as a bitch and then I get a piss poor excuse for her behavior. Can they maybe give her a reason for being a bitch that DOESN'T have a "You must feel sorry for her" vibe to it? Like... make her a bully as a way to cope with her horrifying anxiety attacks cause she once accidentally killed someone. Or severaly injured someone, in case we can't go THAT far. (You know, in a game where murder is the main issue)

C-A

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Uhh, those reasons aren't supposed to make me feel sorry for her?

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No. I think it would make for a nice change. Instead of being bullied or neglected being the reason for attention-seeking bitchiness, the reason being trying to put attention on herself so she won't think of a horrendous (wait, is that a word?) event that she (indirectly) caused so she won't be driven insane by any potential guilt? That's kinda interesting. Whether you feel sorry for her for that is up to you, I'd find it interesting.
Better than a typical sob-reason for being pitied.

A character's actions coming from insanity or wanting to prevent themselves from being driven insane? Kinda cool and interesting.

C-A

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Or kind of random, cheaply pulled out of nowhere, cop-out mental-health excuse plot?

Also even if it was that way I imagine whatever severe trauma she was coping with might manifest in something a bit more than being bitter and horrible to people

Also stop using "I was bullied and was a bully" as some kind of justification.

It means nothing, plenty of people were bullied and have bullied, and their experiences are likely all different (not just from you but from everyone's). You throwing your experience behind it is far from any kind of worthwhile 'proof' of your opinion as fact.

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I'm not using it as a way to "prove" my opinion as fact. I'm showing it as a way to explain why I find such stupid reasons behind someone's bitchiness as being terrible. Using the excuse "I was bullied (because insert reason)" as their big reason for their issues is weak.



Baby steps. Without interference, they might do more. Like eventually hurt themselves, too, as means of coping. (Though I doubt Atlus would do this)

C-A

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So...how does you being bullied and bullying in return show it as a stupid reason?

I'd say you and Ai share a lot of qualities actually. Could be a case of the Atlus writers hitting the nail on the head with someone who was bullied and the effects it has on them.

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*dusts off the thread*

Let me guess....... here has yet to be a Persona game with character customization?

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To my knowledge, the only thing about your character that you can customize in a Persona game is your character's name.

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Hey, in Golden there's nothing wrong with my main parading around dungeons in a bath towel.

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I was not referring to things that could only be changed after starting the game when I mentioned customization. Yes, outfits can be customized once you have access to said outfits. It could also be argued that you customize your character over the course of the game through the choices you have him make, though that's a bit of a stretch, in my opinion.

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Um, Shin Megami Tensei IV has 3 free DLC head equipment that change the main character's hairdo. And in one case, make him blond with heterochromia. But that's the extent of character customization not referring to clothes.

C-A

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And here I was thinking it had character customization option Oh well i's still a good game to watch on youtube though.

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This is about as close as you'll get right now.

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The most customization you can get on the MC's physical appearance in Persona is in Persona 3 Portable, and the only change you can make is whether the MC is male or female.

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Dusting off the thread again.

So, I'm currently watching P4GA. This is actually the first time I've really paid any attention to the Japanese voices for the characters, so my thoughts on that below (please note that I don't speak Japanese, so the voices are being ranked off aesthetic appeal for the most part).

Yu Narukami: I like this voice. It's the same guy who voices Jellal in Fairy Tail, so that's kind of cool. Can't say for sure which voice sounds better. I loved the English voice, but this one works really well too. Points to the casting directors on both ends. That said, I still get a chuckle about Narukami being played by Lelouch in the dub. Another character with a big brother instinct and a younger female relative named "nana-something" (Okay, technically, Lelouche's sister's name is spelled "Nunnally," but there were a couple times I though Narukami was going to say that instead of Nanako).

Yosuke Hanamura: JP voice was good. Very fitting. Can't say which voice is preferable. Again, points go to the casting director on both sides.

Yukiko Amagi: Same as above.

Chie Satonaka: JP voice is also very good. However, this one gets bonus points for being immediately likable. With her English voice (Golden), I found her kind of grating at first, and actually started skipping her lines if I finished reading them before she stopped talking. However, I watched a few videos of the PS2 version of the game, and while her PS2 voice wasn't as grating, it also just didn't seem to fit the character. Eventually, the Golden voice grew on me though, so I'd say the English and Japanese voices are about equal now. Points to the casting directors on both sides, with a bonus going to the JP side (and negative points to the PS2 side).

Kanji Tatsumi: Both voices are pretty good, but I'm going to have lean towards the English voice on this one simply on the basis that the way Kanji delivered his lines in the English version is part of what made him my favorite member of the investigation team. Bonus points go to the fact that his replacement VA was so good at sounding like the original that I never would have noticed the change had I not read the cast info.

Teddie/Kuma: I find both voices irritating half the time and amusing the other half, although I'd probably hate hearing the Dora Mode commentary from Kuma less than I do Teddie, but that's mostly because I don't really speak Japanese, so hearing someone tell me something I already know in a language I don't understand would likely be less annoying.

Rise Kujikawa: My most hated character in the investigation team, and yet, I don't find her JP voice as irritating. How much of a change is this? Basically, I'm now wondering if the main reason I hate Rise so much is because of Laura Bailey. Points to the Japanese casting director on this one.

Naoto Shirogane: Can't comment on this one too much, since I haven't heard much of her in P4GA, but it's exponentially better than her English P4A voice. The Japanese voice also sounds slightly more masculine than both of her English voices, so if they were trying to keep Naoto's gender a secret at first, the Japanese VA did a better job of it. I wasn't particularly crazy about the English voice she had in the game though, so I'll go ahead and give this one to Romi Park and the JP casting.

Nanako Dojima: Thought her English voice was cute half the time, and annoying the other half. Japanese voice was consistently cute. Points to JP casting.

Ryotaro Dojima: Sounds good in both versions. No preference here.

Igor: No offense to the JP voice (RIP), but I prefer the English voice in this case, likely because I'm used to it, and in a case where a dub voice is markedly different from the original, I tend to go with the one I'm used to unless the dub voice is just downright bad.

Margaret: Giving this one to the Japanese voice. Her English voice is just kind of flat.

Marie: Not sure on this one. Her English voice typically sounds somewhat angry, but her Japanese voice sounds bored. I suppose both depictions are technically accurate, but I really can't say for sure on this one.

On that note, while I have no problem with the filler introduced in Golden, and I don't necessarily mind Marie as a character, I do have a problem with P4GA shoehorning what is, for all intents and purposes, a filler character into the filler scenes. Did you love the beach scene? Well, you're going to love it even more now that we added Marie! Couldn't get enough of Rise's concert? Well now, you'll not only hear Rise sing, but Marie too!

Seriously, if that's the attitude they have towards her, why didn't they just add her to the filler scenes in the game too? I mean, it would make sense, since shoehorning her into the main plot wouldn't be taken too well, so why didn't they add her to the game's filler scenes? It would make more sense than just shoehorning her in for the sake of the anime.

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I was opposite with Rise. I had played Persona 4 in English, then watched the anime in Japanese, so I might be biased, but I vastly preferred her English VA. Her Japanese one was so high squealed and grating to my ears. Maybe it's toned down in Golden, but I couldn't stand it in the anime personally.

In short for the rest of the cast, I love both Japanese and English casts about the same, though I do have some preferences for certain characters a bit more. Mainly English Kanji because Troy Baker/Matthew Mercer just felt like they had better deliveries to me. My only complaint with Mercer is his voice feels a little "softer" than Baker's, but it still feels pretty spot on that to me, it's sometimes hard to tell the difference.

I agree with you on Chie's English VA too. I liked her original P4 voice having played it first, but it didn't quite fit her. So for a while, I kinda preferred her Japanese VA. After playing Golden, I couldn't stand the new Chie at first, but after getting through it, I really liked how she delivered her lines a lot more and the voice fit more with the character. I also felt it was much closer with her Japanese counterpart. I also found out Chie's new voice did the voice of Nazz and Kevin on Ed, Edd, and Eddy.

Also, how dare you call any version of Nanako annoying. =(

I kid. While I think Romu Paki's version of Naoto was good, all I could think of was Edward Elric over and over again. As for her English counterpart, I don't care much for the new actress they picked for Arena and the anime, and while her new lines fit better along the original voice in Golden, I much preferred Naoto's original voice. I wanna say her's and Kanji's changed around the same time, but Troy Baker at least did half the anime while her's did not.

By the way, I noticed there's no mention of Adachi. Any personal preference with him?

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Possible. I noticed with new characters that are voiced by Laura Bailey in English that I instantly have difficulty objectively looking at this new character because all I hear is Laura Bailey using the same voice she's used for the other characters. Makes it very difficult for me to separate them all.

I am for the Japanese voices in P4 all the way. Romi Park has a good voice to be used for an androgynous character, though Naoto's gender was never well-kept as a secret. It was quite obvious upon first seeing the character. And I'm overall pretty hard to fool in terms of a character's gender.

And I love Kugimiya as Rise. Finally a character voiced by Kugimiya who is NOT a Tsundere. (Granted she's voiced other characters who are not tsunderes, but she is often casted for them)

C-A

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Speaking of Persona.

I just cleared both Persona Q and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax last week...

Now I'm super pumped for more Persona it's sad.

Naoto ultimately breaks Persona Q really badly except in boss fights but the last boss was quite challenging. Most of that game is trivialised by being able to use Mamudoon and Mahamaon which seem amazingly effective. Also the introduction of "Elemental Physicals" is a godsend. This game actually uses Persona 3's slash/piece/bash style of physical combat although things are hardly ever weak to specific physical attacks. The "Elemental Physical" attacks however are amazing. Fire/Ice/Wind/Lightning forms of Physical attacks mean you can rely on your HP moves to hit enemy weaknesses (as SP is a scarcer resource AND harder to recover). There's almost no need to go to magic at all for attacks unless you want the Elemental AOE attacks as the elemental physical attacks are all single-target for the most part. The plot was quite nice as well with some unexpected twists and the music was really nice as well. I still can't decide which version of the battle theme catches my fancy more. P4's is more joyful and J-Pop whereas P3's gets more of a Rock feel to it. The last two bosses' music are also both pretty satisfying.

All in all, definitely a good game that should you pick up.
Just make sure to use Naoto or at least both Ken and Koromaru.



Onto Persona 4 Arena Ultimax.

Again, really fun time with this one. The story mode is done differently in a way I'm not sure I prefer. In the last Arena game, stories were done the way most fighting games do them, where you choose one character and go through a series of battles with them, playing a story tailored to them. In this one, you essentially progress down a timeline, jumping between characters as their moment in the story comes up. Yes you do have some choice of what character you use in the battles but the story isn't shaped around them. This makes for a very cohesive story, the one "true" path so to speak but I don't know...I quite liked having personalised stories last time around. It allowed for Arc Systems works to do their silly joke storylines. It was certainly fun in Kanji's Persona 4 Arena story to run around convinced it was all a dream to prove himself the Manliest Man. So eh, barring the lack of joke storylines, it's a very sensible way to handle it's story.

As for the story itself, eh it is passable, it's a nice way to tie in both plots of 3 and 4 into one setting. I certainly never expected to hear the name "Shuji Ikutsuki" again but they do interesting things to make the plot relevant to both Persona games. The fighting system is still pretty solid, the addition of Shadow characters is a neat touch. While in function you are basically just making tiny alterations to how the character plays and their stats, the additional voice acting, win positions and general effort put into them makes them feel that much more like new characters entirely.

I suppose my biggest criticism is how the Shadows are handled in the Story. On the plus side it's a much easier way to make characters who are friends fight when one of them is the shadow (a problem the first game got around by manipulating perceptions) so the story fights are against Shadow versions of characters for the most part. Yeah it's cool to see these extreme personalities come back and it's entertaining to see their quirks and traits comeback (Shadow Teddie still being vastly entertaining with his existential discussion). At least it works for the Persona 4 crew...

The Persona 3 crew as we know...didn't actually face their own Shadows and Face themselves, so their Shadows are just entirely new beings. The problem with this is...they don't HAVE a personality to call their own. Instead they just seem "generically evil" versions of the Persona 3 characters with hardly any change. Yeah Akihiko loves to fight and spar, Shadow Akihiko is the same but...maybe acts a smidge more superior? Yes Yukari is a *insert suitable swear word here* but that doesn't really change with her shadow. At MOST her Shadow uses more of her "Super Sentai" dialogue like "FEATHER SHOT!" and "FEATHER ARROW!" fitting her current job but they don't actually seem different.

I suppose one of the better ones from the P3 side of things was Aigis' shadow. It raised the matter of her being a machine and having to follow orders with who they worked for being the only difference. Saying could you really argue with Shadow Aigis for just doing the exact same as Aigis was. Warning her that at any moment they could reprogram her as they saw fit, hitting that whole "A weapon is meant to kill and be used, nothing more" angle for her but that's really about as good as I felt the P3 shadows got.

Contrast with the Persona 4 shadows who are full of the same character they had before, Shadow Chie begins a fight by sitting on top of a group of Shadows (like her original appearance). Shadow Naoto gets up off an operating table before she begins her fight. Shadow Kanji is still...unspeakably awkward. All those nice facets that challenge the original character are there.

I guess I'm reminded of the first game in a away. Shadows made a minor appearance in that game, in Akihiko's story at one point his shadow shows up and his response is "Well that doesn't make sense, I don't have a Shadow so you must be a fake. I'm going to kill you now," and it's brushed off without any real impact. I guess I just felt they had a chance to do something interesting with these characters, give them their 'awakening' the same way the P4 characters got their Personas. It's not like they didn't open the opportunity up. Before the 'action' of the plot begins Ken is torn between living as a kid (as he promised Mitsuru) and his feelings of uselessness to the Shadow operatives from being 'just a kid'. Junpei is clearly torn up over his lovelife with Chidori and is full of regrets over his missed opportunities.

They could have build really interesting Shadows around these, but they just felt like "Evil Junpei" or "Evil Akihiko."
Overall the game is plenty enjoyable and there is a nice story to it. If you really can't play fighting games, you can activate an "auto-mode" where the CPU will fight the battles for you. Though if you were going to go to that length you may as well just watch the story online.

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Haven't really heard enough of the Japanese Adachi to make a definitive judgement, and what little I did hear didn't leave much of an impression on me. That said, since the P4(G) voice is different from the P4A voice, I'll go ahead and list my thoughts on that...

P4(G): Fairly normal delivery here. Overall, I'd say this voice was more fitting for Adachi's character as a whole.

P4A: This voice really played up the bumbling cop aspect of Adachi's character at first, and it was kind of jarring originally. However, I understand why they changed it. It'd be a little hard to tell the difference between Narukami's voice and Adachi's if they hadn't. The Japanese version didn't have this problem since they're both played by different people there.

I'm going to have to go with P4(G) for this one.

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Or you could just, you know, look up Japanese videos of the PS2 version of P4 cause far as I recall, Adachi's Japanese voice did not change.

C-A

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I could, I'm just waiting to hear more in P4GA. I'm only up to episode 5. My pick for P4(G) is just a placeholder until I hear more of the other.

EDIT:



Ironically, the only thing I recall hearing her voice in prior to Persona 4 was Fullmetal Alchemist, which is a huge departure from her normal voice from what I hear. So, for all intents and purposes, Rise's voice was completely new to me. (off topic: sometime after finishing Persona 4, I started watching Soul Eater, and the voice Laura Bailey used for Maka was pretty much the same as Rise's voice, so that took some getting used to. But for some reason, I didn't mind Maka so much. Probably because Black Star was more irritating, but I digress).

DOUBLE EDIT:

Evidently, episode 6 of P4GA is Adachi centric, meaning I got an earful of his Japanese voice. It sounds like an average, run-of-the-mill voice, more so than the English voice does. Given how bland a character Adachi is early on, I'd say it hits the mark perfectly. However, later on in the game, when he starts getting serious, I'd say the English voice is slightly more fitting. Both voices are great, but they both excel in different areas, so I can't really say which is the better of the two.

In a nutshell, I'd say the English casting department did a fairly decent job matching the feel of the original character portrayals. It's a little rough at times, given that Chie's English voice tends to take some getting used to, Margaret sounds flat, and Rise's English voice can be pretty irritating, but aside from that, it's one of the better dubs out there.

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I started playing through Persona 4 Golden again, and I happened to notice something... odd. The in-game news mentioned that the Amagi Inn has "radium-rich" hot springs. Uh... Did the localization team screw up the translation? Or is there a particular compound of radium that's harmless? Or did the developers seriously make the hot springs contain radium as a joke? Or maybe the reporter slipped up?

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Sadly...no

It seems there's a grand tradition of people advertising radium-rich products as beneficial for health including Spas and bathhouses.

It's a misconception but it does happen.
Well guess we know Yukiko's livespan is probably drastically shorter than the rest.

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Perhaps the ability to summon personas is the result of a genetic mutation from the radioactive chemicals within the springs? Maybe it's why Yukiko, at least in my opinion, is the best party member to have and explains why her magic stat is so good.

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I've known about that for a while, Pierre. Were the game set in, say, the 1920s, I'd understand the hot springs being pitched as radium-rich. Persona 4 takes place in 2011 and 2012, though.

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I have to say, I hate how Yukiko doesn't lose her Ice Weakness if you get her Social Link to Max. It rendered her practically pointless in fights against the Reaper. (He really had a thing with attacking her with Ice)

I believe Persona 4 takes place in 2009?

C-A

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Set in 2011. Either way, "radium-rich" hot springs aren't going to make a killing with that slogan, unless that's the joke.

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